Federal Court Judge: DOJ Lawyers Arguing Immigration case ‘Unethical,’ Acted ‘in Bad Faith’

By Joe Guzzardi
May 25, 2016
 
The rampant political correctness that runs amok in the Department of Justice is bad enough. But when the lawyers that represented the DOJ were caught red-handed lying to a Texas federal district court judge about President Obama’s executive action amnesty, then all lines were crossed.
 
Among the many things most Americans are anxious to be rid of, political correctness is toward the top of their list. At DOJ, PC has reached comical levels. Juvenile delinquents are now “justice-involved youths,” according to a memo Attorney General Loretta Lynch released. “Felons” and “convicts,” instantly identifiable words, will be replaced by the long-winded phrases “a person who committed a crime,” and an “individual who committed a crime.”
 
But DOJ has gone much further in its deception than mere word plays. Texas federal court Judge Andrew Hanen, who heard a 26-state coalition’s constitutional challenge to Obama’s executive immigration action, exposed how DOJ lawyers systematically deceived his court about the status of Obama’s deferred action for parents of American citizens and legal permanent residents (DAPA).
 
In short, in December 2014, DOJ lawyers told Hanen that DAPA applications would not be processed until February 2015. But by March, the administration admitted that 100,000 illegal immigrants had already received permits that granted work authorization, social security numbers and a temporary stay from deportation.  DOJ later conceded in legal filings that its lawyers knew all along that DAPA was underway. In a weak and improbable defense of its lawyers, DOJ claimed that its litigators “lost focus on the fact” or “the fact receded in [their] memory or awareness.”
 
Judge Hanen concluded that DOJ purposely lied, that its misrepresentations were made “in bad faith,” and were “part of a serious, more calculated plan of unethical conduct,” even though “they had knowledge of the truth.” Subsequently, Judge Hanen wrote an unprecedented 28-page order mandating that any Washington-based DOJ lawyer who “appears or seeks to appear” in any state or federal court in any of the 26 states that brought the constitutional challenge must first attend a remedial ethics seminar on “candor to the court.” Judge Hanen also required Attorney General Loretta Lynch to submit to him a “comprehensive plan” to prevent further falsifications, but chose not to seek the lawyers’ disbarment or to jail them for contempt of court, options that were available to him.
 
Whether Judge Hanen’s order will ever be put into effect is uncertain. DOJ will likely appeal, or the Supreme Court, which heard the DAPA case in April 2016, could rule for the administration, and make Judge Hanen’s order irrelevant.
 
On its website, the DOJ describes its mission as one that will “enforce the law.” Every law, that is, except immigration law which Obama has gone to extraordinary lengths to gut. The Wall Street Journal, in its editorial titled “The Miscarriage of Justice Department,” wrote that DAPA has historic, far-reaching consequences. The Journal concluded that the states’ constitutional challenge has major consequences for the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches, and that the DOJ’s deceit must have required the coordinated participation of dozens of political appointees and career lawyers which represents “a serious institutional failure, not mere rogue actors.”
 
The Obama administration has seven months left in its second term, plenty of time to inflict continued damage on the historic Americans nation. Mounting evidence proves an intention to do just that.
 

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Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow. Contact him at [email protected]